


Trust Issues

by Tousled_Sky



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Cutting, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Non-Consensual Kissing, Panic Attacks, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10007369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tousled_Sky/pseuds/Tousled_Sky
Summary: "Izaya, it seemed, was used to hands touching him never to heal, but only to hurt."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay guys! I'ma need you to read the tags for this one, because it's got some triggering parts, such as self-harm and cutting. So just, be warned.  
> Izaya's really tricky to write sometimes - who knows what goes on in that head of his. But I'm sure he has trust issues, and I like how I wrote how they would manifest in his relations with Shizuo here.  
> Enjoy, loves~

Izaya has trust issues.

When they first started...whatever this is that they've got, started it five years ago, that wasn't as obvious. But as time went on, and Shizuo got to know more about Izaya, the more he saw just how guarded the other man was. Izaya didn't just hide behind walls - he made the walls appear as if they were him - built them in his likeness, like a trojan horse of Izaya. It took Shizuo a long time to see that those features Izaya so often wore weren't made of his own flesh, but of cold stone instead.

It's a bit strange to think that even after five years of being in this relationship, that Izaya still can't trust Shizuo - not fully. Because to Shizuo, trust comes naturally in a relationship with familiarity and understanding. He trusts Shinra, he trusts Celty, he trusts Tom. 

What's even stranger is to think that Shizuo trusts Izaya - that's something he thought he'd never say five years ago. But now, after almost five years of living with Izaya - his boyfriend, though those words still seem strange in Shizuo's mind - he trusts Izaya. Five years of seeing Izaya grow and change as a person, feeling Izaya influence Shizuo's own growth. Five summers and five winters, five times the cherry blossoms fell followed by five times the cherry leaves fell.

Of course, it's not like Izaya doesn't trust Shizuo at all. Izaya has to trust him to an extent, of course, to allow Shizuo into his home. And he does, to an extent; he trusts Shizuo enough to allow him to sleep in his house, sleep in his bed, sleep with him. He trusts Shizuo to not kill him in his sleep, to not break his neck during sex, to not poison his coffee in the morning. At first, he didn't. Even when their relationship turned from purely physical and rough to something with feelings and depth, Izaya would still flinch when Shizuo reached his hand towards Izaya's face, as if every time Shizuo went to touch Izaya it was an attack. 

When Izaya realized that Shizuo wasn't reaching for him only to strike him, he became suspicious. It was almost as if he thought that Shizuo was trying to lull him into a false sense of security - he couldn't trust that Shizuo was being kind to him because he cared about him, but rather thought that the only reason anyone would be kind to him was due to their own ulterior motives.

Izaya, it seemed, was used to hands touching him never to heal, but only to hurt.

It took him several months to finally stop looking over his shoulder when Shizuo was in the house with him, to finally stop giving full-body startles whenever Shizuo touched him when he wasn't expecting it - like when he was working with headphones on and Shizuo touched his shoulder. 

But now, he hardly ever flinched when Shizuo touched him. Shizuo could hold his hand, rub his shoulders, even embrace him without Izaya protesting or showing any discomfort. Most of the time, he only expressed embarrassment over affection if they were in public, expressing only contentment when they were in private. 

It had taken a long time to get to that point. There was a long time when Izaya wouldn't trust Shizuo with almost anything, and Shizuo realizes now that it was because he couldn't trust him. 

He didn't know how.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the earliest times Shizuo realized Izaya had issues with trust was one summer evening, about two months after they'd first started seeing each other. That was back when their relationship was still largely physical, but yet Shizuo was starting to think that Izaya was kind of cute, but still DEFINITELY didn't like him as a person, and thought he never would. 

They'd been making out on Shizuo's couch, still fully clothed. Izaya was sitting on Shizuo's lap, holding Shizuo's wrists by his head - something he frequently did. Shizuo had previously just thought it was a kink of Izaya's - that he was into dom / sub kinds of things.

Shizuo hadn't been feeling very submissive that night. 

Shizuo doesn't remember what it was that Izaya did to piss him off - maybe he'd bitten his neck too hard, maybe he'd whispered "monster" in his ear. Whatever it was, it irritated Shizuo enough that he'd shook Izaya's hands off his wrists as easily as if Izaya's grip was made of water, and shoved his hands flat against the smaller man's shoulders, knocking him backwards on the couch and climbing over top of him. He'd pinned Izaya's wrists to the couch with one hand as he hovered over him, half-sitting on the younger man.

"Shizu-chan", Izaya had protested breathily, squirming under Shizuo, "Shizu-chan, get off of me right now." Shizuo, assuming that Izaya simply wanted control for his kink, had ignored the raven's protests, cutting him off by kissing him and began rubbing Izaya's inner thighs with his free hand. 

Instead of placating Izaya, this only seemed to further agitate him; he kept trying to pull away from Shizuo's kiss to protest, giving out muffled objections when he couldn't escape Shizuo's mouth, and his squirming turned to thrashing beneath Shizuo's body. Shizuo, irritated, had eventually pulled back to address the raven.

"Izaya, what the fuck-" he'd started, but was cut off.

"Get OFF OF ME, SHIZUO!" Izaya had screamed, punctuating his demand by somehow getting his leg free and kicking Shizuo in the face so hard that the blond was knocked to the opposite side of the couch from the blow.

Through the red in his vision from the pain and the start of rage, Shizuo had seen Izaya scramble off the couch and sprint out the door in one of the fastest displays that Shizuo had ever witnessed. Shizuo had, naturally, given chase, but Izaya was gone - when Izaya didn't want to be caught, he disappeared just like that. It actually was a bit flattering to consider all the times he had allowed Shizuo to keep up with him to prolong a chase in the past, but that wasn't what Shizuo was thinking of at the moment. It was how bad his face hurt and what an idiot Izaya was.

As days went by with no contact from Izaya, Shizuo began thinking about what an idiot Izaya was and started thinking that perhaps he, himself, was the idiot. Mainly because of the way Izaya's voice sounded when Shizuo replayed that face-kick in his head; high-pitched, desperate, terrified. Izaya never sounded like that - Izaya always sounded like everything was under control, even when it very clearly wasn't. The city could be burning all around them and Izaya would still be talking like this was routine - just another 2:00 Wednesday Armageddon. Izaya always gave the impression of being completely in control.

Shizuo was starting to realize that that's why he restricted how much Shizuo was allowed to touch him, and why Izaya usually topped - even if he wasn't fucking Shizuo, but riding him. Izaya had to be in control because he couldn't trust anyone else to wield any sort of power over him; he was too afraid he'd be hurt or killed if he allowed that.

Shizuo started looking for Izaya again after that, not out of anger, but out of concern.

He didn't find him. Izaya showed back up at Shizuo's house a week later. 

"Are you okay?" Shizuo had asked him. Izaya's only reply was glaring up at Shizuo like he couldn't decide whether to hit him or not. 

After a moment's deliberation, Izaya did hit Shizuo. In the mouth. With his own mouth. It wasn't really a kiss - it was more like an attack.

Shizuo kissed back into Izaya's aggression with gentleness, trying to get him to ease up, trying to defuse a tense situation. After a few minutes, Izaya had calmed his aggression a bit, kissing with less teeth and more tongue.

Shizuo had asked for explicit permission to touch Izaya that time and was denied several things - Izaya said no when Shizuo asked to take off Izaya's shirt, for instance. They hadn't had sex that time - Izaya had wanted to, but Shizuo was too concerned over Izaya's freakout the last time to give his own consent.

They had fallen asleep on the couch together, and when Shizuo had woken in the morning, Izaya was gone.

That hadn't happened for almost a month now, and it bothered Shizuo a lot - like they were taking a step back in their relationship.

It wasn't until three or four weeks after that incident that Shizuo woke up with Izaya in his arms again.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though trust in a relationship comes naturally to Shizuo, that doesn't seem to be the case for Izaya. For Izaya, trust seems to be a choice - a choice he rarely makes. As a result, there's still things about Izaya that Shizuo has yet to learn of.

Of course, after five years together, Shizuo knows more about Izaya than he thought there was to know about Izaya. There's the little things, like that he likes acapella song covers and hates sweet foods. However, he knows more than just basic trivia - he knows about deeper things, like Izaya's rough relationship with his mother and the rest of his family. 

However, Izaya doesn't elaborate on that part of his life. He hardly ever shows Shizuo the deepest parts of him; and since Izaya's as deep as a river that fills a canyon, there are still many parts of Izaya that Shizuo has yet to see. 

For example, Shizuo assumes that Izaya's lack of trust is due to some past hurt, but he is yet to learn if he is correct, and if so, what that hurt was. Izaya doesn't tell him things that like - he internalizes all his pain, and it manifests itself not in the form of communication with his boyfriend Shizuo or his friend Shinra. Rather, it takes it's shape in the form of Izaya losing sleep and appetite, in Izaya's sobs at night when he thinks Shizuo's asleep, in lines of torn skin and blood on Izaya's wrists and thighs; sometimes straight, long scratches, and sometimes spelling kanji of descriptions that Shizuo can't imagine Izaya being (because Izaya isn't worthless, he isn't ugly, he isn't unlovable). 

Shizuo asked Izaya about it, one day, when they had been living together for about a month and had been in a relationship for about a year. They had been watching one of the American children's cartoons that Izaya was so fond of, with Izaya leaning against Shizuo, his body warm and slight. They were holding hands, with Shizuo's thumb tracing mindless circles over the back of Izaya's knuckles.

Shizuo had moved his hand up to rub against Izaya's wrist. As his fingers put pressure on the skin there, however, Izaya had gasped with pain, yanking his arm from Shizuo grasp and cradling it against his chest protectively.

Shizuo, however, had already felt the raised lines from the cuts. He stared at Izaya as Izaya stared back at him, the raven's expression fading from shock to closed-off. The blond frowned - he hated it when Izaya closed himself off from Shizuo, when Shizuo had no way of being able to help him, of being able to even reach him.

"Izaya", Shizuo had said gently, carefully, the sound of the characters and plot of the TV show that the two of them had just been so invested in fading to white noise in the background. 

"Yeah?"

Shizuo gestured to Izaya's wrist. 

"Can I see?"

Izaya opened his mouth, then closed it. He stopped for a few moments and looked like he gave the idea serious deliberation. After a few seconds, though, he shook his head, eyes lowered.

"Okay." Shizuo had replied to Izaya's soundless rejection. When Izaya raised his gaze once more, Shizuo met it.

"I wouldn't laugh." Shizuo promised, voice sober and serious. "I wouldn't make fun of you."

Izaya gave him a surprised expression, which soon turned to a smile that lacked any happiness. It wasn't a smirk, either - it lacked the malice for that. It was a smile; soft, sad, defeated. 

Shizuo hated that expression almost as much as the locked face Izaya gave him - he didn't like what it meant for Izaya's emotional state. 

Izaya gave a little huff of air that was a weak, sad imitation of a laugh, before replying.

"I wish I could believe you, Shizuo."

I wish I could believe you. Those words haunted Shizuo almost as much as the sound of Izaya's cries at night.

Izaya's opening up to Shizuo was a slow, constant process, but although Shizuo had seen Izaya's cuts by now, he still hadn't heard Izaya talk about why he cut. It was like he was afraid of anyone seeing him as less than perfect, even his boyfriend of five years. 

In fact, that was probably pretty accurate. It was like Izaya had an obsessive need to be prepared and put-together at all times. An example was how Shizuo often went to bed with nothing but slacks or shorts, but Izaya always went to bed fully dressed (though during the summer, they would often awaken to find Izaya had kicked his clothes off in his sleep). But yet he had to be presentable even in his sleep; he couldn't even let his guard down in rest.

However, whatever the reasons for Izaya's behavior and trust issues, Shizuo could only theorize of them; make educated guesses based off what little evidence he had. Because even though Izaya trusts Shizuo enough now to show him the scars on his skin, he doesn't trust him enough to show him the matching scars on his heart.

It was if Izaya was afraid if he let Shizuo hold the most secret parts of him - if he gave him his trust and handed over control - Shizuo would smash it and hurt Izaya so badly he wouldn't survive.

Shizuo wishes he could show him that isn't the case, but whenever he tells him as much, Izaya doesn't believe him. Can't believe him.

So Shizuo'll just keep telling him Izaya that he's beautiful, that the moon is beautiful, that he loves him. 

Keep doing it until Izaya hears the words not as mockery, but as the truth that they are.

**Author's Note:**

> Just FYI:  
> I tagged this with "non-consensual kissing" because of when Shizuo pins Izaya. Yeah, Izaya was okay with kissing him before that, but he didn't like being pinned by Shizuo and wants him to stop. So, it wasn't consensual when he wanted to stop. I still don't really know if that's the right tag, but "non-consensual pinning" doesn't seem to be a tag, and using "non-consensual bondage" didn't seem quite right either. So, that's why that tag is there.  
> Also, I used the term "the moon is beautiful" at the end because I heard that means "I love you" in Japanese. But alas, I don't speak Japanese, so I'm not 100% sure ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
